Well, it appears Retro Hawks are not the saving grace of Retro after all!! Making changes to the motors is exactly what we don'tneed!!! Having new slower motors absolutely sucks!! It's sad that Tim didn't learn from his first mistake - changing the motor shafts! Now this is just another blunder that puts our little hobby into upset. Seems like we should just go back to TSRs and be done with it!! At least they have never changed!

I wasn't going to respond to anything here. It does not surprise me on fast 7R motors. The issue really is did the original spool of wire run out after 300 arms were wound or 3,000 or ??? So there are good, bad, average mixed all together. I was unlucky enough to get 12 (in a row) bad ones. The motor is the staple for IRRA® racing and should just continue to made as it always has, don't try to "improve" or change anything. Why keep trying to fix something when nothing is broken?...

Maybe Noose can do some back to back with notes at the Fall Brawl? I would assume that he has a stable of both styles ready to roll. I know Willy isn't taking a single new style. I've never been to SpeedZone so Noose would have to say if it would be a good track to qualify as a speed bowl.

Maybe Noose can do some back to back with notes at the Fall Brawl? I would assume that he has a stable of both styles ready to roll. I know Willy isn't taking a single new style. I've never been to SpeedZone so Noose would have to say if it would be a good track to qualify as a speed bowl.

I actually do not have any 7Rs. The two I had left over on our Enduro team I gave to Hip since our team only used one motor for the whole six hours. The Engleman is also not a speed bowl nor is the King really. I do figure though that the 7Rs will more than likely be the hand-out motor for the GTC-FK and GTC-Pro classes on Friday.

Well as a keeper of 70 original HR's, I do not know if I am lucky or unlucky right now.

In regards to what Mike just posted, I always had great luck with the original yellow label Falcon 7's, but found the white label TSR motors to be slower on average, more consistent, and with better brakes. Sounds similar to the topic question and concern here.

I am not privy to what manufacturers requirements are with the IRRA® BoD, however is there a need to have a sample sent in for every new imported batch? Maybe a standardized sample percentage to the gross number of motors per batch for qualification purposes.

I still believe in the sealed motor concept and I also am rational and reasonable enough to know that there are going to be variances. These variances are just as common with $80+ built motors. The guy that has a $1,000 sealed motor package is the same guy that had a $1,000+ builder motor package. The difference is that the excess average sealed motors still get used where the non-performing hand wound armatures of the builder motors die in a Plano container. Way easier to look for the bullet changing $12 motors than it was swapping out setups, armatures, etc. At least for the mid-pack at best guys like me.

When Greg posted your FB post for the BoD to see, he obviously didn't mention to us you intended to post it publicly here on Slotblog.

And I regret not giving the other BoD members the full picture as I should have. My apologies to Rick as well.

From the big-picture viewpoint, as Swiss mentioned in a tire thread, this is an ultra-low volume hobby and suppliers are unlikely to be ordering motors in 100,000 piece volumes simply because the demand doesn't justify it. I don't know in what volumes motors are being ordered now but suspect it is a much lower number. Once a batch is sold out, another batch will be ordered. And my feeling is that there will be performance variations from batch to batch, more than the variations with a single batch of motors. So this is likely to be an on-going problem.

Matt, the IRRA® is not really in a position to dictate requirements to a motor manufacturer. We're lucky to have a Tim Homola who is trying his best to supply as consistent a motor as he can have made for us to use.

Gregory Wells

Never forget that first place goes to the racer with the MOST laps, not the racer with the FASTEST lap

As far as resistance numbers, when it was legal to work on your own motors, and then send them in for verification and sealing, what kind of variance did you see with Puppy Dog arms?

A lot? A little?

PD arms meter much higher than Hawk motors. They also varied, as all arms do, even CNC would arms do. Why? I can't answer that. They varied about 20 counts on my meter. Across the bell curve, probably much better than Asian motors as a whole. Being much higher milliohms means % of variance much better. Normal Hawks have read in the .460 to .480 range, off the top of my head for the present spec of turns/wire size. IIRC, the best PD I ever saw was .585 the norm being about .600.

There is no way to compare CNC winding to Asian mush winding.

The 7R motors, just from my unknowing info, appear to be from a different factory than previous versions, from the appearance of the winding. Or a different operator, or different winding machine or possible when wire changed other variables changed too? Tension, making the visual difference?

The last variable that can make a faster motor, is timing variances, and that will just be something we have to accept from China. When you are looking at a .160" base circle, it would be very difficult to notice 3-5 degees. PS has a fixture to set the comms.

We, as a group, have taken a motor way far away from its intended function.

We will always have the variable from the Golden Ticket to SRO but 50/60 counts is not acceptable...

Matt, the IRRA® is not really in a position to dictate requirements to a motor manufacturer. We're lucky to have a Tim Homola who is trying his best to supply as consistent a motor as he can have made for us to use.

I am not saying dictate, I am saying verify the specs. It has been admitted that there is a wire difference. This could have been caught with a simple verification process. I realize we are dealing with third party manufacturing and I am not faulting Tim whatsoever. Just saying there may need to be a process to make the randomness not so random.

I always like the opportunity to shoot the missile down before it hits its target. Clean up is always a harder task.

"Slower" is FINE!!! The problem is in VARIABLE!!! The TSR motors were certainly slower---but I feel were the MOST consistent in quality we ever had. The variance was closer to %5-%7---instead of the %15- %25 we are getting now in relative performance. THAT is a killer because now we have racers buying new motors that CAN'T complete no matter what with the older motors!! EXACTLY what we were told wouldn't happen when Retro Hawks were stumped as the greatest thing ever!

Again--it just hasn't held it's promise and now we have another motor problem. Sounds like it's NOT going to get better anytime soon---until ALL the old motors get used up slowly over time. I know some folks that have a LOT of those motors. I suppose at some future date you just say they ALL have to have 7R on them or whatever the CURRENT batch of motors are and the old ones aren't legal anymore. What a cluster again. It's just too bad--- it seemed the motor wars had settled down--and now we're back in a controversy that needs to be resolved.

JK could always buy the spool(s) of wire in the US and send that to China to use in his motors. It has been done in the past. Then you know you have true 30 gauge wire. I know the tubs of wire we had at the mill had beaucoup feet of wire in them. Probably make arms for way past my shelf life...

As far as verifying specs on motors, all we would be verifying is that particular motor.

Without someone in the factory, checking wire size, every time, the roll gets changed in the winder, how can we assured of anything?

IOW, unless a batch of 10,000 motors can be wound with one huge roll of wire, how can anything be 100% guaranteed?

Checking a sample of each batch would still be more consistent. If nothing else you would have in hand confirmation of a batch sample in a case like this where someone is claiming rape. Again even if 10 rolls of wire were used, you still have an opportunity of finding inconsistency through random inspections. Looking zero percent of the time is a guarantee of never finding it. If there was an option of 5-6 motor choices (not saying there should be), then there would not be as much of a concern in my opinion. I am not saying there is an issue because I have not tried any of the new versions, just adding what to me looks to be a simple solution.

If cost is a question as to who will pay for 20 samples per batch of 10,000 let me know. As a manufacturer in a different industry I know I would not hesitate to comply to a sample request program if I was the provider to the component of choice. To me it also sets a quality standard moving forward to any new potential motor opportunities.

I appreciate JK Products and their commitment to our small slot car Industry. The idea of equality with everybody having basically the same motor has been great for slot car racing, especially the Retro division. However, hang around the King track at Buena Park Raceway for a while and the talk is almost always the same: either "I got a fast motor today" or "I got no motor today."

I just really think that thought should be given to an American made motor, even at $20 a piece, that has overall better quality control to ensure a level playing field. I'd rather buy one motor at 20 bucks that can give me 2-3 good races than 5-6 motors at $12.95 that don't get the job done. How the SCRRA, IRRA® or whatever other governing body can go about that would be really difficult but I think needs to be done.

Tim,

$20 for a consistent US-made motor? Two big problems:

You can't manufacture a $20 motor in the U.S.

Regardless, it won't provide the consistency you're hoping for.

The IRRA® had $51 motors with US-made arms in a Chinese set-up, and assembled in the US and they varied enough, guys had $3K motor programs.

When there was weekly G12 racing at BP, when the Gerding King was new, one guy spent $10K buying Beuf-made $100 motors.

If it was as easy as spending more per motor, for identical performance, don't you think that person would have pulled the plug at about $1K?

"Slower" is FINE!!! The problem is in VARIABLE!!! The TSR motors were certainly slower---but I feel were the MOST consistent in quality we ever had. The variance was closer to %5-%7---instead of the %15- %25 we are getting now in relative performance. THAT is a killer because now we have racers buying new motors that CAN'T complete no matter what with the older motors!! EXACTLY what we were told wouldn't happen when Retro Hawks were stumped as the greatest thing ever!

Again--it just hasn't held it's promise and now we have another motor problem. Sounds like it's NOT going to get better anytime soon---until ALL the old motors get used up slowly over time. I know some folks that have a LOT of those motors. I suppose at some future date you just say they ALL have to have 7R on them or whatever the CURRENT batch of motors are and the old ones aren't legal anymore. What a cluster again. It's just too bad--- it seemed the motor wars had settled down--and now we're back in a controversy that needs to be resolved.

Other Tim,The current situation with the wire dimension apparently getting smaller, has nothing to do with how well the Hawk Retro has served retro racing the last four years.

Your situation with BP, racing on a Gerding, on low voltage, with no weight limit, is unique.

Everywhere else around the country, racing has been real close using the Retro Hawk.

At the Sano last year, 292-295 laps, 1st-7th, in the hand-out Pro coupe race.

At this year's Sano, the winner in the two King hand-out races, won by only 2 laps.

In the two non-hand-out races, it was only 1 lap.

It's not just at my track. Look at this race I happened to save from SpeedZone;

To answer your question about what differences the BPR racers found in the Falcon 7s... general concensus was that the older orange label ones were faster but many people had white label ones that ran well also. I never had a fast Falcon 7 that lasted an entire race on the King track and they always seem to slow about half way through but many had some go all the way. I think Duran and Ben Jr have ran 350 laps out here with Falcon 7s. To me, the TSRs were unquestionably the best as you knew there were no "silver bullets" and you didn't need to waste your time and money searching for them... just a tad slower but exceptionally consistent and this is just not so with the Falcon 7s (or the Hawks). Just my opinion here and some racers will disagree with me about the TSRs but I think I'm being pretty objective.

Over the years I have probably torn apart maybe 20-30 TSRs and Falcon 7s and they are virtually identical in construction and consistancy. 64, 65 or 66 turns of .0105" wire, (about 78") magnets, endbell and cans identical, the same armature and several years ago we checked the armature resistance and there were no issues with any variation. Except for the shafts, the old Falcon 7s and the newer Falcon 7s are absolutely the same so any real speed difference is probably just attributed to the speed difference in general with the Falcon 7s. In any discussion concerning any of these FK type motors I always remember that these are $13 Chinese motors (a couple bucks or so to manufacture??) and all things considered, I think remarkably consistent and reliable for the price!

We haven't run a lot of the new Hawk 7Rs out here yet and I have only run one and it was so-so. I have torn apart two now that this little issue has come up and both the 7Rs had 65 turns of .0105" wire, exactly the same as all the TSRs, Falcon 7s and older Hawks. I am using just an old Starrett micrometer but it is certainly good enough for a comparison and at least on these two the wire seems the same. The Hawks have completely different magnets than the TSRs and Falcons and it seems the Hawks often have a different feel from Hawk to Hawk as far as the magnetic cogging goes when you spin them by hand and it doesn't appear to be on account of the balancing...

I don't think we've run enough of the newer 7Rs to definately determine if there is indeed a speed difference but I do know people are buying a lot of Hawks in general looking for the faster ones.

If cost is a question as to who will pay for 20 samples per batch of 10,000 let me know.

Cheater has already alluded to this, but OK, saying we did that in this particular situation, it would be a situation of who would pay for the 9,980 motors that just were a tick slower than the last batch, not the 20 samples.